


Too Many Questions

by Delamour



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Gen, Identity Reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 13:11:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11036859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delamour/pseuds/Delamour





	Too Many Questions

When Lena hears Kara say “I’ve got you!”, she knows it’s wishful thinking.

She was on the phone with Kara when she was assaulted, in her own office. She backed out onto the balcony, and in the struggle she fell over the edge. Which is just a _stupid_ way to go.

Lena knows she should be panicking, like anybody else would when falling to your certain (and stupid) death, but for some reason her brain never got the message. Instead it’s being quite busy, mostly listing regrets, but also calculating how long it would take to drop (not long) and whether she’d reach terminal velocity (she would), and how that’s an ironic name since it’s far greater than the speed _actually_ needed to kill a person. Then she adds wasting time thinking about that to the list of regrets.

She hears Kara say “I’ve got you!”, and she first thinks she’s wearing her blue-tooth headset and Kara is still on the line. Then she discards that idea, because she clearly remembers dropping the phone.

Maybe she’s going crazy. What a waste - there are days when she has, only half jokingly, wished she’d just go crazy, then she’d be off the hook for all the responsibilities. Just live alone in a spooky mansion with lots of cats. Going crazy seconds before death, that’s just useless.

So, it’s probably just wishful thinking, her mind telling her what she wants to hear.

Then there is a flash of red and blue and strong arms gently break her fall. 

“I’ve got you!” Supergirl whispers this time, like she’s reassuring herself.

Supergirl quickly deals with the assailants, her voice strong and confident again. Lena tells her about the old Luthor-corp naval research facility where Cadmus is hiding the kidnapped aliens, and there she goes again - off to save the world.

Lena’s been saved by Supergirl before, and it has always been … like a cop helping you. It’s their job, you expect them to be good at it, but you never look beyond the uniform. If you send them after a burglar, you expect them to handle it, after all, they’re the professional.

This could have been just like that.

Only, Lena couldn't help looking at Supergirl's eyes. They were confident. Maybe a little too confident, just like her voice, now that Lena thinks about - like it's a mask she wears. Then, when Lena mentioned Cadmus, the worry showed, the real emotions behind the mask - worry, even fear, then determination. She saw Supergirl's real eyes.

Back in the day, before … , back then, she used to watch movies with Lex. She always recognized the actors. 

_Isn't that the guy from "Mastermind", the one who played the villain's right hand?_

_That carpenter, he also played the mad clarinet player in "Re-capalla"!_

_The waitress, to the left, she was the mistress in "Wallflower Blooming"._

It always impressed Lex, and she loved impressing him. 

It was the eyes and the voice. No matter how they disguised an actor, they couldn't change those. When you see it, you can’t unsee it again.

_That superhero, she's also the one playing Kara Danvers._

She had recognized those worried eyes, even without the glasses, and the voice, when it hadn't been cloaked in Supergirl bravado.

Kara is Supergirl. Or is it Supergirl who is Kara? _Is either of them real?_

She feels the chills now that the adrenaline is leaving her body, … and nausea. She had almost died. Again. And Supergirl had saved her. Again. Except, this time it feels different. Unfinished.

When a cop is your friend, you _do_ worry about them. Even if you know they are good at their job, you also know they are human, fallible, and vulnerable. Accidents can happen.

She just sent Kara after Lillian Luthor, a crazy mastermind who hates aliens, the thought of that makes her stomach turn. 

Lena needs to think. No, she needs a drink, thinking can wait. She also desperately needs to know what is happening to Supergirl.

She checks for news on her tablet. There has been a lot of explosions, a spaceship was launched, and then … no more details. Not helping!

The phone is on the floor, and she picks it up. It’s still connected to Kara. “Kara, are you there?” Her voice is shaking. No response, as expected. She imagines Kara’s phone lying in her apartment, dropped when Supergirl flew to Lena’s rescue.

After a lot of hesitation, she hangs up and sends a text. “I’m OK. You?”

She’s pacing, and on her second tumbler of whiskey, when the police arrives to collect the goons, and she spends the rest of the evening giving statements. It’s past midnight when she can finally collapse on her bed, and she’s sound asleep when her answer arrives: “Glad you’re safe! I’m fine. See you!”

* * *

The alarm clock goes off at six, as usual, and Lena staggers through her morning routine. She’s slept with her make-up on, she hates it when that happens, and she’s annoyed that it takes longer than usual to get ready. 

At the office she gets another visit by the police _and_ the “FBI”, represented a detective Sawyer and agent Danvers, Kara’s sister. They’re asking for all the documentation she has found on the research facility, and she makes sure they get it. 

All Lena is thinking is that _Alex knows_. She has to, she’s Supergirl’s sister. _Supergirl has a sister_. All the times they’ve met, Alex, Lena and Supergirl, or Kara, since that first attempt on Lena’s life, they’ve both known. She gets a twinge of envy, like back in boarding school when the other girls had a secret they wouldn’t share. _I wonder if detective Sawyer is in on it too. Oh, get a grip, Lena._

It’s noon before she can get away from the office. She needs to talk to Kara. She needs to figure out what it really means that Kara is Supergirl. _How many lies have Kara told? Who is she, really? Why does Supergirl pretend to be a normal person at all?_

She tries at CatCo, butKara isn’t there, and people starts to fidget when she asks for her, like something is wrong. Finally someone suggests she looks for Kara at home. _What’s wrong with her? Did she get hurt last night?_

Lena knocks. No response, so she knocks again, harder, and hears Kara yell “Come in, its open”. She hadn’t noticed that she was holding her breath. 

The door is indeed open, so she lets herself in and looks around. It looks exactly like last time she was here. There are dishes in the sink, a blanket thrown over the back of the couch, and an easel with a half-finished painting. It looks _completely normal_. And yet, every fiber of her body screams that this is _different_.

This must be what the Egyptologists felt when they opened the tomb of Tutankhamun. Like she felt when she visited George Washington’s house, or that housing museum in Japan. 

It looks like it’s a normal house, but you know everything has been meticulously placed. Everything is _important_. Everything is _significant_. It feels like it’s the first time she sees it.

These are Supergirl’s dishes, blanket and painting. Supergirl paints, who would believe that. Lena stops at the painting, studying the individual brush strokes. Supergirl made those.

_You’re losing it Lena, badly._

She knows she’s freaking out, it’s just so hard to shake the feeling that everything is surreal. She _so_ needs to talk to Kara, to put some sort of sense into this.

There is water running from the back of the apartment. Supergirl is in the bathroom. That thought finally shakes Lena out of her reverie. When she hears footsteps, she starts on the speech she’s been preparing, “Kara, we need to talk about …”. She stops abruptly. Kara has valiantly tried to freshen up, but it doesn’t hide that she’s been crying.

Lena feels dizzy. _Did something bad happen last night? Did Lillian kill someone? Is it her fault that Kara has cried? Why would Supergirl cry?_ _Too many questions!_

“What’s happened Kara? Are you OK?”

“I’m fine. It’s fine. It’s just …”, Kara’s voice breaks, “Snapper _fired_ me! I wanted to warn the aliens about Cadmus, and he wouldn’t print it, and I posted it on a blog, and then he fired me, and I’m not a reporter any more.” She breathes deeply. “And now I don’t know what to do!” Her shoulders sag when she breathes out.

Supergirl, the most powerful person in the city, perhaps in the world, is crying because she was fired from a unprestigious low-paying job. Lena remembers that Kara had worked at CatCo before Supergirl’s first appearance. She has friends there that are older than Supergirl. Her sister, they grew up together long before Supergirl existed. _Kara_ existed long before Supergirl, and it is Kara who lost her dream today.

And Lena understands. She’s the heir to the Luthor empire, CEO of a fortune 500 company, holds several Ph.D. degrees and forty-odd patents. She was voted “second most powerful person in National City” after only half a year here. And yet, she still cries, alone in her million-dollar penthouse, when she thinks of her lost brother. She still feels powerless because she couldn’t stop or help him. Kara might be Supergirl, the most powerful person alive, but power can’t solve all problems.

Lena briefly considers offering Kara a job, but … it would feel wrong to hire Supergirl without telling her that you know it. And no doubt Alex would oppose it, after all, Lena is still “a Luthor”. 

More importantly, Lena doesn’t want Kara to _depend_ on her. She thinks of Kara as a friend, unlike so many other people she has known, and it’s probably because Kara never, ever wants anything from Lena except her company. And that makes sense now - what could Lena offer someone who can literally touch the sky. And it explains why Kara doesn’t want her to know that she’s Supergirl - Kara wants Lena to like her for the same reasons, not because of what she can do, but because of who she is. Because she _is_ Kara.

Lena decides not to tell Kara that she knows, not until Kara’s ready. When Kara’s ready to trust … not Lena, because she probably already does, but the strength of their friendship. Lena can wait. 

Today isn’t the day to complicate Kara’s life more, it’s just a day to be a friend. Lena has all the answers she needs for now.


End file.
